Fixtures put Fergie in a squeeze

It’s getting increasingly hard to organise the fixtures with the number of dates UEFA are taking up for the Champions League and the Europa League

A Premier League spokesman

The fixture list is published today and it is likely Sir Alex Ferguson won’t be the only manager moaning.

Restrictions over the World Cup finals next summer, and increased Champions League and Europa League dates, mean “a lot of disruption,” the Premier League said yesterday.

Manchester United boss Ferguson last season complained that the fixture list made his team’s commitments all the harder and suggested he would send a representative to oversee events this summer.

United secretary Ken Ramsden is on the fixtures working panel. But not even he will have been able to satisfy Ferguson’s hopes.

A Premier League spokesman said: “It’s getting increasingly hard to organise the fixtures with the number of dates UEFA are taking up for the Champions League and the Europa League, and by putting the Champions League final on a Saturday now.

“We are right at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to scheduling fixtures and it is making an already hard job that much harder.

“We don’t really want to increase the number of midweek matches we have because we are a weekend competition principally and it’s not fair on fans who get chopped around already because of police requirements and TV scheduling as well as Europe.

“It’s probably going to be the most difficult season yet in terms of organising the fixtures in a satisfactory manner.”

Congestion will worsen as UEFA have decreed the last-16 stage of the Champions League will be played over a four-week period in February and March, rather than two weeks.

The Premier League starts on August 15 and must be completed by May 16 because of the World Cup in South Africa.

The spokesman added: “It won’t just be the clubs competing in Europe that are affected, it will be all teams.”

The FA Cup Final will be on May 15 and the Champions League Final on May 22. The final day of the Premier League may well be May 9, two weeks earlier than last season.